


Love like (Team) Instinct

by honeypothux



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Also sort of a mystery, Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - College/University, Crack, Fluff, Freemarket Capitalist Hux, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-14
Updated: 2016-07-14
Packaged: 2018-07-23 20:01:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7477968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/honeypothux/pseuds/honeypothux
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Pokémon GO launched, Kylo Ren expected to catch Pokémon, make new friends, and relive some of the happier moments from his childhood. Sleeping out in the cold, chasing a ghost, and making out on public property weren't part of the plan, but plans have a way of changing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love like (Team) Instinct

**Author's Note:**

> This is prompt fill from a tumblr Anon. Hope it is just as weird as they expected it to be.
> 
> Also, I'm Team Valor. Fight me.

At 12:33 PM, Kylo groaned for the one thousandth time that day. At 12:24 PM, he shouted, “Yes!” and smacked his head against a piece of wood.

“Fuck!” Kylo dropped his phone and fell back onto his bed, hands pressed the red indent on his forehead. He hissed under his breath and rolled over, nursing his wound against the sheets.

His roommate, a twenty year old WASP who jerked off at the temple of free market capitalism and exploitative labor practices, peered down from the top bunk, brow raised. “Would you mind giving yourself a concussion on something other than my bed? I’m trying to study.”

Kylo lifted his head and glared, though it was difficult to look intimidating with a dent in his face. “Fuck off, Hux,” he said. Kylo slipped out of bed and scrambled for his phone, pulling it from the ground. “You know, they say you shouldn’t study in bed. Or all hours of the day. Bad for learning.”

“Yes, ‘they’ do say a lot of things, don’t they?” Hux replied, not bothering to look up from his book. It was probably another eight-hundred page manifesto on market interest and inflation. Kylo rolled his eyes.

“Yeah, well, have fun reading your book on clumps of sand or whatever,” Kylo said, looking to his phone screen. The server message that plagued him for hours was finally gone. After waiting a lifetime to go on his Pokémon adventure, it was finally time.

Hux turned his eyes from his book, watching Kylo set up his account. He sneered, sticking up his nose. “Yes, and you have fun with your children’s game.”

Kylo grumbled, setting his jaw. He wouldn’t let Hux get to him, not today. “It is not a children’s ga—oh, holy shit. The new professor is a daddy.”

“Jesus Christ, Ren.”

 

* * *

 

 

In the summer months, the university had a poor reputation. Students kept to themselves, struggling with compacted course schedules. Though the fraternities advertised pool parties, few students attended them. The grassy quads lay barren, the grass yellowing and barren. The only places with crowds were the libraries and cafes, stuffed full of nervous bodies pouring over thick textbooks.

So, Phasma was surprised to see the coffee shop she worked in full of smiles. The textbooks and dread were missing, replaced by dozens of students glued to their phones. Stray glances at customer’s phones provided little help, as everyone was staring at the same weird map application. When Kylo rolled into work fifteen minutes late, she was too confused to scold him.

“Kylo, what the hell is going on here? Is this some kind of fishing club? They’re all talking about lures,” she said. A moment later, she noticed the map was open on his phone too and her blood ran cold. “Is this the Twilight Zone or something? It’s got you, too!”

Kylo looked up, brows raised. “You don’t know about Pokémon GO?”

“Are those the little talking animals with the belt straps? The one with the yellow dinosaur?”

Kylo wrinkled his nose. “You really were raised under a rock,” he mumbled. Kylo stuck out his hand, gesturing for her phone. “Here, I’ll help you get started. This place is actually a PokéStop, so it should be pretty easy to get you going.”

Phasma raised her eyebrows, but entertained Kylo’s enthusiasm. She typed in her Apple password and let him download the app, watching as he set up an account for her.

“I’m starting a gym-battling group. You can join it to thank me for helping you here,” he said, smirking. “Team Instinct, you got it?”

A laugh came across the counter. It tickled Kylo’s ear and made him shiver, smile souring on his face. Poe Dameron appeared from the crowd, his own face beaming. He always looked like he was having a great time. It made Kylo immeasurably envious, if slightly intrigued.

“Team Instinct, huh? I took you for a Team Valor guy. Fighting, and all that.” Poe leaned against the counter like he was ordering a drink in Bond movie. Kylo wanted to point it out and accuse him over posturing, but he needed to defend his own honor, first.

“I just think Team Instinct has a point. Some things you’re just born with. Like a destiny, or good looks” Kylo said, trying to use his superior height to gain an edge. However, despite his ability to look like a hulking monster, Poe kept smiling.

“You think I have good looks?” Poe returned, shoving Kylo off-balance with his words.

“You did say ‘you’, Kylo,” Phasma pointed out, nudging her friend in ribs. Kylo twitched away from her, his brows knit in a firm line.

Poe shrugged the situation off and grabbed a few coffee creamers. “Well, listen, Rey, Finn, and I are Team Valor, so just look out, okay?” He winked and Kylo wanted to throw himself off a tall roof.

“Finn? He told me he was going Team Instinct,” Kylo muttered. Behind him a line of customers started to clear their throats, forcing Phasma away.

Poe laughed and shrugged his shoulders, vanishing back into the crowd of hyper millennials. Kylo looked down at his shoes and muttered, “Traitor.”

 

* * *

 

 

Within four days of launch, Kylo Ren and his “Knights of Instinct” had claimed the North side of campus for themselves. They were intense players, a mix of athletes and performing arts students who spent more time outside the dorms and libraries than their peers. Their hold seemed unbreakable, the level and CP gap too large for anyone to break.

Until someone did.

A single gym shifted to Mystic in the middle of the night, taken over by a single player with a senseless string of numbers for a username. When Kylo approached the spot in the morning, the user’s Ninetails, simply named ‘YourMove’, stared back through the screen.

It was easy to win the gym back. A few of his Knights showed up before their soccer practice and helped him set things straight. Still, the Ninetail’s weighed on his mind and he decided to encourage their would-be foe. With the help of his friends and a quick bout of Pokémon renaming, they left a message.

“Challenge Accepted.”

They didn’t expect anything to come from their strange Mystic foe. The gym was far out of the way, the least accessible on campus, and they doubted that this single player could keep pace with them for any considerable time. They were moving too fast and summer midterms were coming up, anyway. Any nerd that joined Mystic would be too busy shoving textbooks through their eye sockets to play.

But, by the next day, that Ninetails was there waiting again. Its tails swayed back in forth on the screen, the words ‘YourMove’ taunting him. A smile slipped over his face. So, he had a rival.

Over the next few weeks, the Knights and their strange enemy traded control of the gym on the daily. Every morning, he’d come out to find that Ninetails staring back at him. He’d fight it, turn the gym over, and go on with his day. But, every moment he sat in class, he wondered how, wondered why. Where had this strange trainer come from? Who were they?

His professor called on him, asked something about Botticelli, and he smiled until the class moved on.

That night at home, he put on two pairs of socks and shoved his bag full of granola. Hux watched him from his bed, a single brow quirked.

“I’m going to go find that guy. From the gym,” Kylo said, tying a rattle old hoodie around his waist.

Hux turned a page in his book, humming like a father listening to a child prattle on about things he didn’t care about. “Didn’t you take a Women and Gender Studies Course, Ren?” he asked, eyes still fixed to small print of the page.

Kylo looked up at Hux, head cocked to one side. “Yeah, but I don’t see what that has to do with anything.”

Hux hummed again, turning another page. “Well, I was just thinking you’d know better than to assume your mysterious stranger was male while you were off trying to recreate your failed childhood.” A smile appeared on his face and Kylo huffed, throwing his bag over his shoulder.

“Choke on the economy, Hux.”

“The economy is not a physical object, Ren.”

“I’m sure you could figure it out.”

Kylo waked out the room and slammed the door behind him. Hux shut his book and sighed.

Kylo cut across campus, guided by the dim light of school’s clock tower. It struck out against the sky, an imposing and elegant gothic structure. Passing it, he opened Pokémon GO to collect some items from the PokéStop placed atop it.

The contested gym was an old, long defunct fountain pressed against the black hills just North of campus. It was overgrown with ivy and bordered by thick brush and tall trees on all sides, making it difficult to see much of anything outside the small clearing around the fountain itself.

Kylo sat down next to the fountain and turned on some incense for the wait. He collected a few spare Abra and Paras before resigning himself to wait in boredom. He exhaled and laid his back on the ground, tucking his head against it. The summer air was warm and heat radiated of the concrete, keeping him comfortable despite the strange circumstances.

He stayed up all night, but no one came. The gym shifted power – he saw it happen, let it happen – but he found no one there to cause it. When he checked the gym, things were different. A series of numerically named trainers were there, all dressed to look the same, all with Ninetails.

Their names spelled out, in five parts, the message, “I Saw You Looking For Me.” The sixth Ninetails taunted him with same old name. “YourMove.”

When his friends arrived in the morning, Kylo was in hysterics. “Guys,” he said, shoving his phone in their faces. “Guys, I think we’re in a creepypasta.”

 

* * *

 

 

Kylo shuffled around in his backpack, tossing a bag of goldfish crackers inside. He put on his two pairs of socks and his packet. Across the room, still in bed, Hux frowned.

“You’re not honestly going out after your ghost again, are you?” He asked, setting his book aside. Hux crawled to edge of the bed, staring down as Kylo lifted the flood light and battery he’d started taking out with him. “This is like the fourteenth time you’ve stayed out there all night. You’re going to get mugged.”

Kylo nodded his head, already headed for the door. “You don’t understand, Hux. I have to find them. It is all I can think about.”

Hux climbed down his ladder, coming to stand beside Kylo. “While I’m glad you’ve corrected your gendering issues—"

“Christ, Hux. Aren’t you a Republican?”

“I’m a Neoconservative, Ren, but that is beside the point.” Hux reached out, taking hold of the floodlight. He tried to pull it away, but Ren held firm. “This is getting ridiculous. Can’t you stay home just one night?”

Kylo huffed and pulled away. “While your concern is nice, I need to figure this out. I won’t ever sleep if I don’t.”

Ren opened the door and left, leaving Hux to groan. He turned to Kylo’s bed and charged forward, intent on leaving a strongly worded note on personal safety on Kylo’s pillow.

Hux smacked his forehead on low-hanging edge of his own bed and hissed, sinking to his knees with a slew of curses

Kylo set up his floodlight and stalked the bushes, phone in hand so he could check in on the gym. “Come on, come on,” he mumbled. This was driving him mad. Over the past six weeks, he’d spent one night a week out here, walking in circles. In all that time, he’d found nothing.

Of course, the conversations with his ghost were getting more exciting. They left him countless Ninetails messages. “You’re Pretty Tough You Know.” “How Does The Concrete Feel?” “We Could End This Any Day.” There was a new one every morning, always ending in “YourMove”, though he cherished a few in particular. Sure, it was a little creepy for a nameless, faceless person to call him handsome through creepypasta tactics, but it was pretty creepy for him to spend nights searching for them.

Besides, his messages were getting pretty frisky, too. His friends cringed at being forced to participate in the message construction, but Kylo didn’t care. Whoever this fucker was, they were just as crazy as him. That was enough to justify a little flirtation.

  
So, when the Ninetails occupied the gym that night, he gasped. He read the words over ten times before they made sense in his head.

“Want To Go Out W/Me?” and then, as ever, “YourMove.”

When The Knights of Instinct were forced to put in five Pokémon named “Yes” to accompany Kylo’s “OfCourse”, they all sighed. Phasma grumbled loudest of all.

“I should have joined Valor,” she said, to the offense of all her teammates.

 

* * *

 

 

“So, tonight is the night you die?” Hux asked. He was sitting on the floor of the room, arranging flyers for an upcoming political event Kylo hurried around behind, fussing over his looks. He checked his hair in the mirror twenty times, much to Hux’s amusement. He’d never seen Kylo quite so insecure.

“I’m not going to die, Hux,” Kylo said, giving up on his hair. He only had fifteen minutes to get down to the clock tower PokéStop, the location set by his mysterious rival the day after their proposition.

“A date with a stranger at midnight in a dark, secluded place doesn’t just scream murder to you?” Hux asked, rising from the ground.

Kylo sighed and picked up one of his fencing foils, holding it out toward Hux. “Would you feel better if I brought this along?

Hux moved the point away from himself, face stern. “I would feel better if you let me go with you.”

Kylo snorted. “Right. I do all the work to find this ghost and then you swoop into reap the rewards,” He said, opening the door. He kept the foil on hand, just in case. “Besides, it’s a date. Other people aren’t supposed to come.”

Hux followed Kylo out into the hall, ignoring his roomate’s groans. “Again, the perfect set up for a murder. I’m coming and you can’t stop me.”

Kylo stared at him and clicked his tongue, shoulders slumping. Once Hux set his mind to something, there was no stopping him. They shared that trait well enough. “Fine. But once you see they’re not a creep, you’re gone.”

“A fair agreement,” Hux said, smirking. Kylo felt his satisfaction and boiled over it.

When they arrived at the base of the clock tower, no one was there. However, a blanket was laid out across the stone, a collection of Kylo’s favorite snacks settled in a center basket. Kylo narrowed his eyes at the sight, approaching. How would they know his love for white chocolate coated pretzels?

“Hux, are you seeing this?” he said, looking back over his shoulder to find Hux tapping away on his phone. His own buzzed in his pocket and, when Kylo pulled it free, he found that someone had just set off a lure module. He furrowed his brows, caught the Rattata that had alerted him, and looked back to Hux.

Somehow, in the ten seconds Kylo was distracted by his phone, Hux had made his way onto the blanket. He was opening up a bag of skittle for himself, pouring them out into his hand. Kylo jolted and stepped forward, grabbing him by the wrist.

“What do you think you’re doing? This isn’t for you,” he said, earning a smile from Hux. Kylo flinched at site of it, taken aback. Hux so rarely smiled and meant it. “I-If you wanted some, you could have just asked.”

“It is for me,” Hux said, holding out his phone. Kylo looked down and was greeted by a familiar string of numbers and a familiar, canine face. He tensed and Hux leaned forward, pressing his mouth to Kylo’s ear. “Your move, Kylo.”

Kylo inhaled and forgot to exhale. Every muscle in his body pulled in opposite directions and his brain, unable to make sense of the situation, hit the panic button. He toppled Hux over, pinning Hux to the ground beneath him. He held Hux down by his wrists, straddling him. “How?” he asked. “You spend all day in the house. I don’t understand. Why didn’t I ever see you?”

Hux laughed and, ever the one to up the anty, said, “I’ll tell you if you kiss me.”

Kylo’s eyes widened in realization. This didn’t just mean Hux was some strange, secret Pokémon master. This meant Hux, the bastard who holed up in his bed and lobbed insults down like a mad king in a tower, was into him. Romantically. That he wanted to flirt and kiss and be together. He seized up, flush spreading over his cheeks. Hux laughed again.

“I’m waiting, Ren,” he whispered. “Are you going to make me wait forever?”

Ren didn’t. He obliged him immediately, pressing their lips together. Hux bit as his lower lip and Kylo released one wrist to hold Hux by his hair. He didn’t have much in the way of experience – sports always came before dates, in his life – but Hux seemed more than pleased with a sloppy kiss. When he pulled back, they were both gasping for air.

“Well?” Kylo asked, regaining his breath. “How did you do it?”

Hux’s smile grew and he closed his eyes, looking all too much like a cat lying out in the son. “Would you believe me if I said my dad works at Nintendo?”

Kylo groaned and squeezed Hux’s wrist, a scowl on his face. “This isn’t the kindergarten playground. Don’t give me that shit,” he said, earning yet another laugh from Hux. It rumbled through Kylo’s chest cavity and his anger slipped away. It was difficult to be pissy when Hux looked so handsome smiling.

“Come on, fess up. I kissed you. We made a deal.”

Hux reached up with his free hand, running his nails over Kylo’s scalp. Kylo shivered in response, a sigh escaping his lips.

“Kiss me a hundred times and I will tell you,” Hux said, leaning up to brush his lips against Kylo’s. “Or a thousand. A hundred thousand.”

Kylo felt his face burn, the tips of his ears glowing bright red in the dark. “You want me to kiss you a hundred thousand times?”

Hux nodded, pressing a second kiss to Kylo’s lips. It was light and chaste, but Kylo trembled in response. “Yes, and you better get started real soo—”

Both of their phones buzzed in their pockets and they stopped. Kylo reached into his jacket and pulled out his phone, checking the screen. Hux craned his neck to the side to steal a glance.

“Is that a fucking Magmar?” He said, shoving his free hand against Kylo’s chest. “Get the fuck off me. I want it.”

“What about our hundred thousand kisses, Hux?”

“A hundred thousand kisses can wait. This lure module only has twenty-five more minutes and I want that fucking Magmar.”

Kylo pulled away from him, though not for long. They spent the remainder of the night cuddled beside each other, eating pretzels and catching Pokemon. By the time campus security came to shoo them in the morning, they were both asleep on each other’s shoulders.

**Author's Note:**

> For those wondering how Hux pulled it off, the set-up is actually inspired by my own university. We have a substantial underground library which snakes beneath huge sections of the campus. Hux was down there with six phones laughing his ass off. Kylo, not keen on studying, wasn't aware of where the libraries ran. He was out in the cold while Hux studied.


End file.
